WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:02.840 Hi, I'm Dr. Mike Heiser, Scholar-in-Residence at Faithlife. 00:03.140 --> 00:08.600 And I want to launch into a five-part series today on God as man in the Old 00:08.600 --> 00:09.100 Testament. 00:09.620 --> 00:13.560 Now, this is an idea that we associate with Jesus because we believe in the deity 00:13.560 --> 00:14.100 of Jesus. 00:14.620 --> 00:19.840 We think of God as man being Jesus only, but you'll actually see this in the Old 00:19.840 --> 00:20.220 Testament. 00:20.720 --> 00:24.380 Now, I've dealt with this at length in my book, The Unseen Realm, but there are 00:24.380 --> 00:28.340 enough instances I think we can go through pretty quickly in our series that you'll 00:28.340 --> 00:31.180 be able to see what I'm talking about and be blessed by it. 00:31.620 --> 00:36.400 Probably the most obvious is Genesis 18, where Abraham and Sarah are visited by 00:36.400 --> 00:37.360 three men. 00:37.780 --> 00:40.840 Well, it turns out in Genesis 19, that two of the men are angels. 00:41.120 --> 00:45.640 And the third man is actually the Lord, actually the God of Israel. 00:46.180 --> 00:49.620 Yahweh, the divine name, the special God of Israel. 00:50.300 --> 00:54.680 That is pretty transparent because the language just sort of tells us that. 00:54.680 --> 00:57.300 What isn't so clear are some of the other ones. 00:57.440 --> 01:02.580 Genesis 32, we're all familiar with Jacob wrestling with the angel or wrestling with 01:02.580 --> 01:04.580 the man there in that chapter. 01:04.820 --> 01:09.640 That incident gets referred to in Genesis 48 in a really telling way. 01:10.240 --> 01:13.300 When Jacob is about to die, he blesses Joseph's children. 01:13.860 --> 01:20.780 And he says, in part of his prayer, he says in three stanzas, may the God who 01:20.780 --> 01:24.760 protected me throughout my life, may the God who took care of me, 01:24.860 --> 01:25.860 so on and so forth. 01:26.100 --> 01:31.800 And then the third stanza is, may the angel bless these boys. 01:32.000 --> 01:34.700 And you say, well, what's so interesting and spectacular about that? 01:35.340 --> 01:37.300 The verb bless is singular. 01:38.440 --> 01:41.100 Jacob doesn't say, may they bless these boys. 01:41.440 --> 01:43.960 He says, may he bless these boys. 01:44.040 --> 01:44.660 Well, who's the he? 01:44.780 --> 01:45.680 Is it God or the angel? 01:45.960 --> 01:47.660 The answer is yes. 01:47.660 --> 01:54.980 Again, it's a sort of a cryptic reference to the idea in an Old Testament writer's 01:54.980 --> 02:02.140 mind that this particular angel was God, God in human form. 02:02.780 --> 02:04.480 That's just the tip of the iceberg. 02:04.760 --> 02:09.080 As we proceed through our segments, I'm going to show you more instances where 02:09.080 --> 02:11.980 God appears as a man in the Old Testament. 02:12.380 --> 02:15.320 Hi, I'm Dr. Mike Heiser, scholar in residence at Faithlife. 02:15.320 --> 02:21.100 And this is the second installment of our little series on God as man in the Old 02:21.100 --> 02:21.700 Testament. 02:22.140 --> 02:27.340 One of the more interesting instances of this for me occurs in Exodus 23. 02:27.960 --> 02:31.160 Now, this is after the crossing of the Red Sea. 02:31.260 --> 02:33.600 This is after giving the Ten Commandments at Sinai. 02:34.180 --> 02:41.240 God comes to Moses and says, I'm going to send an angel before you to guide you, 02:41.340 --> 02:42.700 to get you to the promised land. 02:42.700 --> 02:46.760 You need to obey him because he will not pardon your transgressions. 02:47.220 --> 02:47.420 Why? 02:47.640 --> 02:51.060 Because my name is in him. 02:51.640 --> 02:54.840 Now to understand what's going on here, you have to know a little bit about what 02:54.840 --> 02:57.900 Old Testament scholars call the name theology. 02:58.860 --> 03:04.160 The name Hashem in Hebrew is another way of referring to God himself. 03:04.520 --> 03:09.080 Now, if you have maybe a conservative Jewish friend today, they will not say the 03:09.080 --> 03:12.720 divine name, the special name Yahweh for the God of Israel. 03:12.780 --> 03:17.400 They will either say Adonai, Lord, or they will say Hashem, the name. 03:17.660 --> 03:19.740 It's another way of referring to God. 03:20.260 --> 03:25.120 There are verses in the Old Testament that talk about trusting in the name of the 03:25.120 --> 03:25.440 Lord. 03:25.780 --> 03:27.120 Well, you're not trusting. 03:27.320 --> 03:30.220 The Israelites weren't trusting in four consonants. 03:30.900 --> 03:34.660 That's another way of saying I'm trusting in God himself. 03:34.660 --> 03:39.640 And so if we take that back to Exodus 23, what God tells Moses is really 03:39.640 --> 03:40.240 fascinating. 03:41.080 --> 03:44.800 Listen to this angel that I'm sending before you because my name is in him. 03:44.940 --> 03:45.780 I'm in him. 03:46.320 --> 03:48.540 My essence, my presence is in him. 03:48.980 --> 03:53.380 And if we actually look at other passages in the Old Testament about who took the 03:53.380 --> 03:58.680 Israelites to the promised land, some verses say God, some verses say the 03:58.680 --> 04:02.040 angel, some verses say the presence of God. 04:02.040 --> 04:03.600 You say, well, which is it, Mike? 04:04.220 --> 04:05.380 The answer is yes. 04:05.560 --> 04:09.600 It's all of them because they're all different ways of talking about the same 04:09.600 --> 04:09.980 thing. 04:10.420 --> 04:15.440 But in the angel's case, this angel was visible in human form. 04:16.460 --> 04:19.320 He shows up elsewhere as the captain of the Lord's host. 04:20.440 --> 04:22.720 We have God as man in the Old Testament. 04:23.260 --> 04:27.040 What's really fascinating about this one is when you get to the New Testament and 04:27.040 --> 04:29.040 Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane. 04:29.600 --> 04:35.580 In John 17, he thanks God for the name given to him and says, I have kept those 04:35.580 --> 04:40.460 who you've given me by your name because I'm in you and you're in me. 04:40.900 --> 04:42.100 What is he talking about? 04:42.200 --> 04:46.580 He's not saying, boy, Lord, I'm glad that that I was named Jesus. 04:46.580 --> 04:48.660 I could have been named Elvis or something. 04:49.100 --> 04:50.080 That's not what he's saying. 04:50.140 --> 04:55.240 He's saying, I'm glad that I came as a man incarnate. 04:55.240 --> 05:03.020 I have your name inside me because in that case, Jesus of Nazareth is saying the 05:03.020 --> 05:06.660 essence of God himself is embodied within me. 05:06.840 --> 05:10.640 It's very consistent with the Old Testament, but we can miss it in the Old 05:10.640 --> 05:11.020 Testament. 05:11.460 --> 05:15.940 So when you come across the name of the Lord, think about this passage in Exodus 05:15.940 --> 05:19.460 where we again see God as man in the Old Testament. 05:19.460 --> 05:22.820 Hi, I'm Dr. Mike Heiser, Scholar in Residence at Faithlife. 05:23.040 --> 05:26.640 And we're continuing with our series on God as man in the Old Testament. 05:27.020 --> 05:33.140 In our last segment, I alluded briefly to Joshua chapter 5, where Joshua meets the, 05:33.440 --> 05:35.780 quote, commander or captain of the Lord's host. 05:36.520 --> 05:39.960 And we're talking about God as man in the Old Testament. 05:40.300 --> 05:42.900 And this is often a passage people wonder about. 05:43.400 --> 05:48.880 The evidence that this is actually God as man is actually a lot clearer than you 05:48.880 --> 05:49.740 might suppose. 05:50.720 --> 05:56.800 If you read Joshua chapter 5, verses 13 through 15, there's a specific phrase in 05:56.800 --> 05:58.700 the description of the commander of the Lord's host. 05:59.080 --> 06:01.960 He has a drawn sword in his hand. 06:02.060 --> 06:02.920 You say, well, big deal. 06:03.360 --> 06:04.860 Everybody carried swords, didn't they? 06:05.400 --> 06:06.420 Well, yeah, they did. 06:06.600 --> 06:11.700 But the Hebrew behind that phrase occurs in only two other places in the Old 06:11.700 --> 06:12.060 Testament. 06:12.620 --> 06:16.360 One of them is in Numbers 22, 23, when we have Balaam and the donkey, 06:16.360 --> 06:20.800 where it's the angel of the Lord who has a drawn sword in his hand. 06:20.920 --> 06:25.320 The other one is in the incident in Chronicles, where David has sinned by 06:25.320 --> 06:28.900 calling for a census, and the angel of the Lord is sent to destroy. 06:29.180 --> 06:33.300 And he's described specifically as having a drawn sword in his hand. 06:33.860 --> 06:38.120 These are the only three references, those two plus Joshua 5, where that 06:38.120 --> 06:41.840 specific Hebrew phrase occurs in the entire Old Testament. 06:42.580 --> 06:46.380 It's a way the biblical writers telegraphed who they were talking about 06:46.380 --> 06:48.200 there in the book of Joshua. 06:48.520 --> 06:52.620 Now, it's significant because we saw earlier in our second segment, 06:52.760 --> 06:57.420 the idea of the angel leading the people of Israel to the promised land, 06:57.500 --> 07:02.260 the angel in who was the name of God, the very essence of God. 07:02.660 --> 07:07.340 Now, the amazing thing is if you go to the New Testament and you look in Jude, 07:07.340 --> 07:13.940 the tiny book of Jude, Jude verse 7, guess who led the people of Israel out of 07:13.940 --> 07:15.300 Egypt into the promised land? 07:16.100 --> 07:17.140 It says Jesus. 07:18.200 --> 07:25.760 It's a very clear allusion back to the captain of the Lord's host and the angel 07:25.760 --> 07:27.200 in whom was the name. 07:27.400 --> 07:32.220 And we saw in our last segment that Jesus had the name as well, there in his high 07:32.220 --> 07:33.660 priestly prayer in John 17. 07:33.660 --> 07:39.040 So, if you go back to Joshua 5, whenever you read that passage, 07:39.320 --> 07:43.920 I hope that you have all these other ideas sort of floating around in your head and 07:43.920 --> 07:46.260 you can read that passage more intelligently. 07:46.760 --> 07:51.780 It's another instance where God appears in human form in the Old Testament. 07:52.080 --> 07:56.900 I think we can tell by now, our third installment, the purpose for this. 07:56.900 --> 08:03.460 This kind of material is preparing readers, preparing Jews, preparing for 08:03.460 --> 08:09.300 later Christians, Gentiles, anyone who hears the gospel message for the idea of 08:09.300 --> 08:12.800 God coming as a man, as the Messiah. 08:13.580 --> 08:18.580 These Old Testament passages sort of pave the way for that idea so that it just 08:18.580 --> 08:22.660 doesn't come out of thin air all at once when we have Jesus born. 08:22.660 --> 08:25.780 Hi, I'm Dr. Mike Heiser, Scholar-in-Residence at Faithlife. 08:26.080 --> 08:31.800 And we're continuing today with our fourth of five installments on God as man in the 08:31.800 --> 08:32.380 Old Testament. 08:32.720 --> 08:36.920 Now, we're not specifically talking about Jesus being in the Old Testament. 08:37.160 --> 08:43.460 We're talking about the second person of the Trinity as a human being, coming as a 08:43.460 --> 08:45.880 human being, appearing as a human being in the Old Testament. 08:46.080 --> 08:50.560 And that's a precursor to what's going to happen in the Incarnation, in the New 08:50.560 --> 08:51.400 Testament with Jesus. 08:51.980 --> 08:56.740 One of my favorite instances of this in the Old Testament is the story of Samuel, 08:56.840 --> 08:57.860 the little boy Samuel. 08:57.960 --> 08:59.920 Now, this is a story we're all familiar with. 09:00.680 --> 09:05.280 Samuel is living with Eli right there in the tabernacle where the ark is kept. 09:06.060 --> 09:07.400 And what happens? 09:08.040 --> 09:09.260 Samuel's trying to go to sleep. 09:09.360 --> 09:11.940 He lays down and hears a voice that says, Samuel, Samuel. 09:12.500 --> 09:17.180 And he thinks it's Eli because the very first verse of that chapter said, 09:17.180 --> 09:23.000 now catch the wording, the word of the Lord was rare in those days. 09:23.340 --> 09:24.360 Hold on to that thought. 09:25.060 --> 09:26.860 Samuel runs over to Eli and says, what do you want? 09:27.540 --> 09:28.720 Eli says, hey, I didn't call you. 09:29.180 --> 09:31.200 This happens a couple more times. 09:31.200 --> 09:35.380 And it finally dawns on Eli, you know, I think it's the Lord. 09:35.460 --> 09:36.620 The Lord is calling you. 09:36.680 --> 09:41.280 So the next time it happens, say, speak, Lord, for your servant hears. 09:42.040 --> 09:43.600 So Samuel does that. 09:43.720 --> 09:52.100 And sure enough, we read in verse 10 in 1 Samuel 3, the Lord came and stood as he 09:52.100 --> 09:53.080 had before. 09:54.100 --> 09:58.980 So it's the same voice, but now we have a figure standing before Samuel, 09:59.720 --> 10:01.120 an embodied figure. 10:01.320 --> 10:03.940 And Samuel says, speak, Lord, for your servant hears. 10:04.060 --> 10:08.240 And he gives a message to Samuel about Eli that's bad news. 10:08.240 --> 10:12.100 And Samuel, sure enough, tells Eli the truth later on. 10:12.300 --> 10:15.120 But the chapter ends in a really significant way. 10:15.260 --> 10:20.480 It says, after that, everybody from Dan to Beersheba, the whole stretch of the land, 10:20.900 --> 10:23.460 knew that Samuel was ordained as a prophet of the Lord. 10:23.560 --> 10:23.900 Why? 10:24.880 --> 10:27.280 Because the Lord came and appeared. 10:27.720 --> 10:29.680 That's the language of visual appearance. 10:30.100 --> 10:35.620 The Lord came and appeared to him by the word of the Lord. 10:35.620 --> 10:40.520 If you're thinking what I'm thinking, word of the Lord, that's an idea we 10:40.520 --> 10:42.740 associate with John chapter 1. 10:43.220 --> 10:46.200 In the beginning was the word, the word was God, the word was with God, 10:46.240 --> 10:47.440 the word became flesh. 10:47.840 --> 10:53.220 In John 1 14, that idea has deep Old Testament roots. 10:53.680 --> 10:59.620 And this is another example here in 1 Samuel chapter 3 of God coming as a man in 10:59.620 --> 11:04.940 the Old Testament and specifically this time referred to as the word of the Lord. 11:04.940 --> 11:08.040 Hi, I'm Dr. Mike Kaiser, scholar in residence at Faithlife. 11:08.460 --> 11:12.840 And this is the fifth of five installments on God as man in the Old Testament. 11:13.220 --> 11:15.920 For this one, I want to take you back to Genesis 15. 11:16.060 --> 11:17.340 Now, it's a familiar story. 11:18.020 --> 11:20.840 We know that God made a covenant with Abraham. 11:21.360 --> 11:24.600 One of the chapters where this is described is Genesis 15. 11:24.940 --> 11:27.280 And the very first verse is important. 11:27.400 --> 11:31.840 It says, the word of the Lord appeared to Abraham. 11:32.600 --> 11:36.920 And we have the word of the Lord who we sort of met in our last installment. 11:37.100 --> 11:39.680 And again, the idea of an appearance. 11:40.720 --> 11:46.200 In verse 5, it says that the word of the Lord, this figure, that he took Abraham 11:46.200 --> 11:48.980 outside and showed him the stars. 11:49.320 --> 11:52.540 And this is the language of embodiment. 11:52.840 --> 11:54.180 This is a person there. 11:54.260 --> 11:56.420 It's not just a voice in Abraham's head. 11:56.800 --> 11:59.160 It's someone there with him. 11:59.160 --> 12:03.680 Now, we know from Paul later that the gospel was preached to Abraham and the 12:03.680 --> 12:04.880 Lord appeared to Abraham. 12:05.140 --> 12:09.000 But again, the word of the Lord helps us put this into a little bit of a context 12:09.000 --> 12:09.700 for us. 12:10.060 --> 12:14.660 Now, later in the prophets, in Jeremiah chapter 1, we have one that I consider 12:14.660 --> 12:15.500 pretty startling. 12:16.280 --> 12:17.440 Same thing happens. 12:17.620 --> 12:20.780 This is Jeremiah's call to ministry in chapter 1. 12:20.900 --> 12:24.120 And it says, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. 12:24.720 --> 12:27.380 Now, Jeremiah starts to have a conversation with him. 12:27.380 --> 12:31.320 And he refers to the word of the Lord as Yahweh, as the Lord. 12:31.400 --> 12:32.780 He knows who he's talking to. 12:33.940 --> 12:39.740 And then a few verses later, it says that the Lord, again, this figure, the Lord, 12:39.760 --> 12:45.940 who's also called the word of the Lord, reached out his hand and touched me, 12:46.120 --> 12:47.160 touched my mouth. 12:48.180 --> 12:52.700 Now, that even goes beyond visual embodiment. 12:53.040 --> 12:54.980 It's a tactile experience. 12:54.980 --> 13:03.620 We have God, not only just in human form, but somehow in flesh to touch the prophet. 13:04.460 --> 13:08.560 Again, these are all precursors to what we see in the New Testament. 13:09.100 --> 13:15.420 The idea that God could come as a human being, they had been prepped for that. 13:15.480 --> 13:17.680 Now, the incarnation sort of ups the ante. 13:18.060 --> 13:21.000 The incarnation isn't just visual embodiment. 13:21.080 --> 13:24.110 The incarnation isn't even just tactile embodiment. 13:24.110 --> 13:29.530 The incarnation means that God was actually born as a human being, 13:29.710 --> 13:30.470 born of a woman. 13:30.750 --> 13:33.750 So it's even more spectacular than the Old Testament. 13:34.070 --> 13:38.690 But what you get in the Old Testament prepares the mind of the reader, 13:38.930 --> 13:41.830 prepares them theologically for what is going to come. 13:42.390 --> 13:44.450 This is not a Christian invention. 13:44.650 --> 13:48.490 This is consistent through both testaments of the Bible. 13:48.490 --> 13:54.090 So it's important to realize that biblical theology, again, doesn't change. 13:54.190 --> 13:57.050 You don't get point A and then point B contradicts it. 13:57.390 --> 14:03.410 It's a consistent story, consistent themes, consistent ideas given to us. 14:03.650 --> 14:07.290 And they take on new meanings as the Bible story goes on.